Simply Sight Words!

I know that I am like most of you and have been teaching sight words since the very beginning of the school year, but I thought I would show you some of the things I have been doing in my classroom to help my kinders learn the sight words. I always love getting new ideas to add to my toolbox so here is a peek in my classroom and the things I use. 

I have shared with you before that I have created sight word units to go along with the units in the 2011 HM Journeys reading series. This is where we get the sight words our kinders are responsible for learning. There are 40 words total in the reading series but I also add more words by teaching them in addition to these since I think they are extremely important to my kinders (ex. - can, love, went, want). My kinders love doing the activities in these units and I love the activities too. My favorites are the pages where they have to fill in the missing sight word from the sentence and trace the other words. Then I have my kinders practice reading the sentences to themselves and they have to read them to me or my TA before they can put their work up. This gives them extra practice reading the sight word in the correct context.

These units are available as a bundle in my TpT store for $15.00. I am working on creating the unit 1, but once I do it will be added to the bundle for those who have purchased for free. 

Kindergarten Journeys 2011 Edition Sight Words Units Bundle

Recently with my high flying kinders, I started having them play the Sight Word Seashell Game from Lakeshore in a small group during Daily 5. This game covers the first 100 sight words which makes it more of a challenge for them. This game is played by drawing out a shell and reading the sight word on it. If they read the word correctly, they get to keep it, but if they don't know the word it goes in a discard pile. If they draw a crab, they have put all their cards back in the box. I was lucky enough to receive this game through a Donors Choose grant.

For my struggling kinders, I have the Fishing for Sight Words game from Lakeshore. This game is better for my struggling kinders because it only focuses on the first 25 sight words. It is fun so they enjoy playing it too. Each child takes a turn with the fishing pole. When they "catch" a fish, they have to read the word. If they read it correctly, they get to keep it; if not, they throw it back in the pond. This is another game that I received through a Donors Choose grant. My TA played this game with a couple of my kinders during Daily 5.

I use flashcards that I have made to practice the sight words quickly every day with my kinders. I made these on circle shapes because research shows that your eyes are drawn to what is in the middle of a circle. I use these as flashcards as well as to make a word worm and review with my kinders. I have created these for the Journeys sight words as well as the pre-primer, primer, and 1st grade Dolch words. They are also available in my TpT store.

These are my kinders playing the Word Worm game with the Journeys 2011 sight words.

These are not all the ways I practice with my kinders, but I hope this gives you some new ideas for practicing sight words with your kiddos. If you have any other new ideas, I would love to hear them!

Oh Lovely Sight Words!

Well my kinder class is still working on learning sight words. As I have shared before, we use the sight words from the 2011 edition of Houghton Mifflin Journeys reading series. As we have been going through each unit this year I have been creating activity sheets for the sight words. These units are for sale in my TpT store. My kinders have really enjoyed them and I think it helps them to have more practice with each of the words. I use the sheets for morning work or independent work throughout the day as well as homework. 

I have just posted my newest set: 

Kindergarten Journeys Sight Words Unit 5 (2011 edition)

This unit is $4.00 in my TpT store. 

I think this is my favorite unit so far. This unit included a bonus sight word reader for the kids to read and color. My kinders love these activities!

Color & Number Words

Even though our school district does not require our kindergarten students to be able to identify the color and number words, I always teach them with my sight words so I have made another set of Word Worms for these words. This set goes from zero to twenty (I only teach to 0-10) and has the ten basic color words. I am introducing this set tomorrow with my kinders and I hope they will enjoy adding these words to our Word Worm bag. If you would like to purchase, this game is only $1.50 in my TpT store. I am putting it on sale for the until 2:30 pm EST on Wednesday for $1.00 if you would like to pick it up at the discounted price. Just click on the link below to purchase.

Color & Number Word Worm

BTW: Can anyone see what I am posting OR are my comments not working? I haven't seen any comments on any of my posts in a LONG time. I am just wondering if somehow my settings have been changed.... If you can please leave me a comment just so I know you can see this. 

New Sight Words Units on TpT!

Well I have been busy teaching sight words to my class of kinders and as I told in an earlier post I have been working to create activities to go along with our reading series list of sight words. We use the HM Journeys 2011 edition. I have created activities for units 2, 3, and 4. I am also offering a bundle that will include all of the units at a discounted price.

Here are some examples of activities included in the units.

If you would like to purchase any of these units please click on the links below! Thanks!

Journeys (2011 edition) Unit 2 Sight Words Unit

Journeys (2011 edition) Unit 3 Sight Words Unit

Journeys (2011 edition) Unit 4 Sight Words Unit

Journeys (2011 edition) Sight Words Unit Bundle

Learning Sight Words

As is every kindergarten teacher in America, I am working hard to teach sight words to my kinders. Our school district uses the 2011 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Journeys reading series so that is where our 40 sight words come from. I have not found all the activities that I wanted for these sight words so I have started making my own. On the push of a fellow teacher, I am going to start putting them into unit packs for purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers. I am starting with Unit 2 because that is the unit we are getting ready to begin next week. I will try to go back at some point this year and create the same kinds of sheets for Unit 1, but I am planning to make the other units as we go along.

This unit contains:

• Search, find, & color pages
• Fill in the blank sentence pages
• Trace, write, color, cut & glue pages
• Review pages (all unit 2 words)

Please click on the link below to purchase at TpT!

Kindergarten Journeys Sight Words Unit 2 (2011 edition) 

 

Dolch Word Worms for Kindergarten & First Grade

Last year, I told you about making a set of "word worms" for the 2012 Journeys reading series to have my students practice recognizing their sight words. These word worms have made learning the sight words fun for my students. They enjoy playing the game but in order to play it well they must be able to quickly recognize their sight words.

I have had some requests to make the same game for the Pre-Primer, Primer, and 1st Grade Dolch word lists. So for those of you that do those lists instead of a reading series list, here are the word worm sets for you. Each set is $2.00 or you can get the combination set for $4.50 which will save you $1.50.

Dolch Pre-Primer Word Worm - $2.00

 

Dolch Primer Word Worm - $2.00

Dolch 1st Grade Word Worm - $2.00

 

Dolch Word Worms Combo Pack - $4.50

Journeys Unit 2 Sight Word Review

As I have told you in the past, our school district adopted the Houghton Mifflin Journeys reading series last school year. In order to help my kinders learn their sight words I have been following the series and focusing on one sight word per week. At the end of each unit there is a review week. For unit 2, I created this little review sheet. It will be a couple of weeks before I use it but I am sharing it now for those of you that are ahead of me in your school year. I hope you enjoy this little freebie! Happy Friday!

Journeys Unit 2 Sight Word Review

Five For Friday

I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday.

1 - This week we have been assessing the math standards for our 3rd nine weeks report cards. One of the standards was comparing 2D and 3D shapes so here are the shapes we are using to compare.

2 - These adorable little vistors came to our classroom on Thursday. They belong to a fellow kindergarten teacher who brought them to share with our entire grade level. My kinders loved seeing them.
 

3 - This was one of my literacy stations this week for my kinders. My kinders enjoyed finding the rhymes and it was very interesting to see how they spelled some of them.
 

4 - My kinders wrote after we read The Easter Egg by Jan Brett. I was amazed at this little fellow's writing. He worked so hard on decorating his egg and his story to match.
 

5 - This is a color by sight words sheet I made for my kinders to use this week. It is pretty simple but it practices some of the harder words from the Journeys reading series. I am posting it as a freebie for you too. I know it may be too late to use it this year but you could always use it for spring.
 

Bunny Color by Sight Words Activity Sheet

Sight Words Fun

This is an idea that I saw at the SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference. 

Brain research says that a person's eyes are drawn to the middle of a circle while your eyes are drawn to the edges of a square or rectangle shape. Since my kinders' eyes are obviously drawn to the middle of a circle as well, I typed up all of our sight words from the Journeys reading series on circles. They are enjoying reading the sight words this way. 

Another idea to review the sight words is to use the word worm circles. I created a different set for the first 3 units and last 3 units of the Journeys reading series. These word worms are available on TpT for $2.00 but they are on sale until Sunday night for $1.50. 

Journeys Kindergarten Sight Word Worms

To play the word worm game: 
Each student gets a circle. The teacher puts down the head of the word worm on the floor. The first student puts down his/her sight word and reads it. Each of the other students must read the sight words that are already a part of the word worm before they add their sight word to the worm. If a student has difficulty with a word, he/she may ask a classmate for help.  

Since I am in a giving mood, I am giving away 2 sets of my word worm games. All you need to do is enter through the Rafflecopter below. I will draw for my winner on Saturday so make sure you enter now.  
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference

Earlier this month, I went to the SC Kindergarten Teachers Conference presented by SDE. This is the first year I have been to the conference in 5 years because our district has not allowed teachers to travel for professional development unless they initiate the professional development. I was so excited to find out that I could attend. As in previous years, this was a wonderful conference that had so many wonderful presenters. 

I got to meet the fabulous Dr. Jean. She was the keynote speaker on the first day of the conference so she started all of us out by singing and dancing. It was lots of fun. I also went to 2 of her workshops. She gave some great ideas for teaching sight words to our kinders. One of my favorite ideas she gave was to write the sight words on paper plates as a different way to review sight words. The circle shapes draw the students' eyes to the middle of the circle which keeps their focus better than a square or rectangle shape. 

I decided to recreate her idea and make the circles on my computer. I made a set of sight word circles for the Journeys reading series sight words and my kinders are loving them. They think it is special to get to read the sight words from the circles.

 On the second day, I met the wonderful Heidi Butkus of Heidi's Songs. She was another great presenter. She led us in the singing of some of her songs and gave ideas for teaching CVC words and word families to our students. She also gave ideas for working with the struggling readers/learners in our classroom. 

I will be sharing more ideas from the conference in the upcoming weeks so stay tuned!  

Eggcellent Easter Unit & Giveaway

I just finished putting the finishing touches on my new Easter unit: Eggcellent Easter. I wanted to finish this unit early so you would have time to use it before Easter since it is so early this year. Each activity in the unit is aligned to at least one Common Core Standard and the standard number is posted on the activity. There are 34 pages in this unit.

Here are some of the things included in this unit:

Bunny Letter Match game - Kinders match the uppercase letters to the lowercase letters.

Spring Syllable Sort game - Kinders clap the syllalbes in each picture. Then they put the egg card under the correct chick so that the pictures are sorted by syllables.

Roll, Add, & Cover gameboard - This is a gameboard I created in color and laminated to have my kinders use in a math center. They roll 2 dice and add them together. Then they cover the sum with an Easter mini-eraser.

Easter Addition Mat & Recording Sheet - This is another board I created in color to have my kinders practice adding two groups together. Then they will record their addition problems on the recording sheet.

If you would like to purchase this new unit, it is available in my TpT store and TN shop for $3.00 for the until tomorrow night (Friday, March 1st). After that the unit will be $5.00.

TpT store                                    TN shop

To celebrate my newest unit, I am having a giveaway for one copy of my unit. Please enter below through Rafflecopter. I will draw for my winner on Sunday, March 3rd. 
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Teaching Sight Words (Journeys Units 4 & 5)

Today is a Flex Day for me so I am out of school. YAH! I am heading out to enjoy the day with my mom but I wanted to leave you with something I used this week with my kinders.

For another way to have my kinders practice their sight words from units 4 and 5 of Journeys, I created a sight word bingo using those words. I used these during my small group time this week and it helped some of my kiddos. There are still some who are struggling, but hopefully the more exposure they are given the better they will get at knowing the words.

Head over to my TpT store to download these for free. The set includes the call card for the teacher and 6 different bingo cards. My kinders are loving these games and it is helping them learn those sight words. 

Click on the picture to download. Please leave me some feedback if you download these. Thanks!

 

Teaching Sight Words (Journeys Units 4 & 5)

My kinders have been practicing these sight words for months but many of them are still not fluently reading them and finding them in books so I made a concentration game for my assistant to use in small groups as extra practice. My kinders love playing these kinds of games and they don't even realize they are learning through the game.

Journeys Units 4 & 5 Concentration Game

I am sure many of you teach these same sight words even if you don't use the Journeys reading series so this may be something you can use too.

If you download this game, please leave me some feedback. If you have another suggestions for ways to practice sight words with my kinders, I would love to hear them too!

Teaching Sight Words (Journeys units 1, 2, & 3)

This week I am on unit 4 lesson 17 in my Journeys reading series. This year my kinders seem to be having more trouble than usual learning their sight words. I have also had to adjust some of the words I teach since the sight words are not the same in Journeys as they were in our old reading series.

I have created a sight word bingo game to use with my small groups next week to review the sight words from units 1, 2, and 3 of Journeys. I hope you can use it too. If this goes well, I plan to make one for units 4, 5, and 6.

I am sure many of you teach these same sight words even if you don't use the Journeys reading series so this may be something you can use too.

Journeys Sight Word Bingo - Units 1, 2, & 3

 

If you download this bingo game, I would love to hear from you. I always love to hear your suggestions.

More Valentine Fun

I have been super busy this week so I haven't been able to post anything, but I put together this activity to help my kids practice reading their number words. I hope you will be able to use this too!

Valentine's Number and Number Word Match

Please leave me a comment if you download this activity!

Teaching Sight Words

I have been teaching sight words to my kinderkids all year. Our school district broke the Common Core sight words into groups that the kids must know for each quarter of the school year. I still have some kids that do not know all of the words from the first quarter. I am looking for some new ways to teach sight words. I have used concentration games and flash cards. Do you have any suggestions for games that I could create or find to use to help my kinderkids learn these sight words? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Love is in the air!

Valentines Day is on the way so I am sharing an activity that I made to use with my kinderkids. Hope you can use it too!

Sight Word Concentration Game

I made this game to use during our small group rotations. The kids have to make a match of two sight words and be able to read them. This really helps them learn their sight words.

If you choose to use this game, please leave me a note! Thanks!

Wonderful Winter!

Since I am on Christmas break, I am working on some activities for my winter theme which we will start when we return to school. I hope you will be able to use them too!

Snowman Sight Word Concentration Game

I created this game to give my kinderkids more practice with the sight words they are expected to know at this point in the year. I printed 2 sets on blue paper and the students will find the match. If they can't read the word they have to put it back down.

Winter Number Match

I created this game to have my kids practice matching numerals to sets of objects and the number words during our small group math time. We are just beginning to learn number words so I may pull my hair out to begin with, but I think it will be a fun way for my kinderkids to practice this skill. I printed this on cardstock and laminated for durability.

Winter Counting Activity Sheet

This sheet has the kids practice counting sets of winter objects up to 20 and practice writing the numbers.

If you choose to use any of these activities, please leave me a comment! Thanks!!

Sight Word Games

In our school, we teach our kinderkids a certain set of sight words each quarter and assess them on this list. I have created a memory style game for the first and second quarters. I print them and back them on construction paper to make them more durable; then laminate them. I hope you can use them in your classrooms.

1st quarter sight words memory game (pumpkins)

The 2nd quarter game also includes the words from the 1st quarter.

2nd quarter sight words memory game (snowflakes)

Sight Word Game

I just found the most interesting sight word game on K Double Stuffed's blog. She has the sight words on cookies that you can print on cardstock and laminate. I am planning to put magnetic tape on the back of them and use a real cookie sheet to have my kinderkids practice reading them.


Click on the pictures below to go to her blog!